Echoes of Dark and Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

in horror as the locomotive seemed to reach out and hover in mid air before gravity slowly pulled her down into the abyss. Another explosion split the air, and another, and another, as each car tumbled over the edge and crashed in the ravine until the train came to a shuddering halt. Five cars remained on the tracks, and two hung vertically into the gorge, suspended above the burning wreckage.
    “Damn,” I whispered again, trying to force air back into my lungs.
    Screams echoed into the valley as confused and terrified passengers quickly exited the remaining cars on the rails. I stared in horror at the passenger car hanging precariously above the burning remains of the train. Arms waved wildly though the broken windows and frightened faces yelled for help. I climbed to my feet in a bit of a daze, and scrambled back up to the tracks. I shuffled along, edging through the panicked passengers evacuating the train. Stumbling to the edge of the ravine, I felt sick to my stomach for the people who had died in the explosions, and even worse for the people who would surely follow when the suspended cars lost their connections and dropped into the burning ravine. I didn’t want to wait around and witness those deaths. Besides, I had my own problems. I resettled the straps of my pack and turned to leave when another sound caught my attention.
    Cheering?
    I glanced around, looking for the source. There, across the ravine! A group of fifty or so men dressed in varying shades of brown and gray stood on the opposite rim throwing their hats in the air, waving their muskets, laughing, celebrating. Confederate soldiers. They’d blown the bridge in an act of war, to keep supplies from reaching the Union troops. They didn’t seem to care that they’d purposely killed innocent children and old people…had tried to kill me.
    A bitter taste flooded my mouth and an anger burned hot in my chest. So that’s what war did to people, calloused them, filled them with hate, burned their souls. A child’s cry broke my gaze with the celebrating Rebels, and I turned to see a little boy trying to crawl out of the suspended passenger car window, reaching for his hysterical mother who stood a few feet from me. I drew in a haggard breath with determination.
I won’t let war do that to me!
    I tossed my pack in the brush, checked on my knife securely stashed in my boot, and then began traversing down the rocky hillside to the bottom of the ravine.
    A hand reached out and clamped onto my arm.
    A stooped, gray-haired fellow stood above me, blood oozing from a cut over his eye. “Trust me, son, you shouldn’t go down there. You’ll only get yourself killed as well.”
    “I don’t know you, so excuse me for not heeding your advice,” I grumbled through clenched teeth. Shrugging off his grip, I hurried down into the fiery ravine.
    Black smoke bellowed hot and thick, burning my lungs as I scrambled down through the greenbrier and raspberry canes growing wild and dense on the slope. I studied the enflamed scene through waves of heat and watering eyes, and found the Confederates had succeeded in blowing up the majority of the bridge. The only part left standing, and my intended rescue route, was the northern half of the wooden support trestle, mere feet from the dangling train car of passengers yelling for help. I had to work fast; the growing fire would soon engulf the trestle as well, not to mention that the weakening connections between the suspended cars wouldn’t hold out much longer.
    I gave the fire a wide berth, trying not to look at the burning gravesite, though my morbid curiosity couldn’t help a quick glance. I made out the remains of the steam engine, and noticed the burnt corpse of a rail worker hanging out of the smashed metal wreckage. My stomach turned at the crispy black flesh that minutes before had been a living human face.
    Pushing the image out of my mind, I found myself at the base of the trestle looking up, up, up at the hundred and